Would you like a lunch? Day 44

just a lunch by Leanne

On a Saturday nights every couple of months, after making about 100 sack lunches and praying together, about 15-20 students and leaders from the high school youth group at Westminster Chapel pile into vans and head to Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle.  This is Lights Out…a student–led ministry to the homeless using sack lunches and socks (hats and gloves in the winter) as a way to share  love and care with the homeless, hurting, and hungry in Seattle.  Sometimes in the process of handing out the lunches, God allows us an opportunity to hear a person’s story, and pray with them; sharing the hope of Jesus through prayer.

I’d like to share a conversation I had with a woman in Pioneer Square during Lights Out on Saturday night.  It will stay in my heart forever:

“Hi, I’m Leanne.  What’s your name?”

“Jan”

I grasp her hand and tell her it is nice to meet her.

“Would you like a sack lunch?”

“Nah….well, yeah…okay.”

“I have some socks you can have too.”

Jan takes the socks and the lunch and I sit down next to her.

“You look weary.  Do you have a shelter to stay at tonight?”

”No, I am barred from the shelter”

“My mom was an alcoholic…she drank so much when she was pregnant…it messed me up…I am stupid…I have trouble…and…and, well I got barred from the shelter.”

“Someone at the shelter told me I smell like garbage…I try to stay clean…I really do… “

“My mom hit me around…I never met my dad…  No one thinks I am worth anything…”

“I wish my parents would have aborted me!”

“I’m 42.  I have a kid in Arizona and one in California.  I want to call and tell them goodbye because I can’t live anymore.”

“I just want to go rot in a corner somewhere and die.”

I am mesmerized…staring into her eyes, as tears fall from my own…then I see tears in hers.  Instinctively I hug her and stroked her head.  I am desperate for her to know that she is of infinite worth…that God loves her beyond comprehension.  In my own head I am screaming to God to give me the words to share with her.  He gives me none.  I have no words, so I keep listening to her, asking a clarifying question every so often.

Jan continued: “No one loves me…only the animals think I am any good.”

“No one loves me.”

“Jan, would it be okay…I would really love to pray with you?”

“Father God…I am sitting her with your precious child, Jan.  Thank you for her life, thank you that I got to meet her tonight and learn her story.  Thank you Lord, that no matter what…no matter what we have done, what we are doing now, or what we will every do, that you love us with a love that isn’t dependent on us being good, but on your Son Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead and is preparing a place for us in Heaven.  Lord thank you that you promise that whoever calls out to you for forgiveness will be forgiven.  I pray tonight that Jan will experience your love for her, that she will experience your nearness and your healing touch.  Father God, bring people into Jan’s life who will speak the truth to her about how precious and how beautiful she is.  Lord protect her from harm and comfort her with your Holy Spirit.  Father God, you can do so much more than I am praying for…so much more than I can even imagine.  Keep your child, Jan in the Shelter of your Wing tonight.

In Jesus name Amen

Lights Out was 3 days ago now and I can’t shake it; the people, the stories, the students, the prayers.  I have been replaying this conversation over and over in my mind the past couple of days…unable to do so without crying.  Thinking about it makes me feel restless and tense.  Late this afternoon I was replaying the conversation with Jan for what felt like the hundredth time, when I realized that maybe what I am feeling isn’t exactly tension…

maybe this is what it feels like when your heart begins to break for the things that break God’s heart.

To all of those involved in Lights Out…the students, the leaders, and mostly the people who shared their stories with us:

I pray tonight as we learned from one another, may we glorify Him.

And if the Lord should bring us back together, may we be in his arms till then.

To God by the glory now and forever, now and forever

Amen…

To God by the glory now and forever, now and forever

Amen…

-from Benediction Song by Timothy James Meany

Day 43- seek, love, walk...



this is worship...

Yesterday, Brian, the youngest of my four children, graduated from high school. 

For those of you who still have children "in the nest", I hope what I have written will encourage you a little bit.  For those of you who are experiencing children venturing out on their own for the first time...maybe the following will resonate with you a little bit too.

When Brian was very young he had a tiny pair of green canvas shoes (no they weren’t Toms).  When his little toddler feet outgrew the shoes, I spent a day sketching them and then wrote a verse (Micah 6:8) on the drawing.  It is a verse that became the basis for a prayer I have prayed often for Brian over the years…I don’t remember the exact words I pray, but they go something like this:

My Father God,

Thank you for entrusting me with your precious child, Brian.  Lord, I feel so inadequate to raise him but I know You will strengthen me and give me wisdom.  I ask You, Father,  that as Brian grows he will fall in love with You and Your word, and that he will seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with You… worshipping you with his life, all the days of his life.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

Well, the little canvas shoe drawing has been hanging in our kitchen for almost 17 years. And those tiny baby feet are now a men's size 12!  I recently took down the drawing when it was pointed out to me that I spelled “humbly” wrong on it. Oops!

So this week, as God prepared my heart for Brian’s graduation,  I tried to sketch another pair of canvas shoes…this time they were “man size”, but still with that same verse from Micah written on the drawing.  As I sketched and shaded and erased and sketched some more I reflected on how faithfully God has worked and continues working in Brian’s heart…and I will continue to pray.

Father God,

Thank you for giving me these precious 18 years with Brian in our home. Thank you for preparing him, and preparing me to release him to go off to college and live in a new place and discover the path You are setting before him. 

Thank you for impressing on me and Don from the very beginning that You want us to hold the children in open hands to you. 

Thank you for the rejoicing times, but also thank you for the valleys that You have walked through with us- just like You promised you would.  Lord, my inadequacy to parent Brian was never more evident then it has been this year …walking through some of the harder stuff of life with him…but Your faithfulness and Your strength in my weakness was also never more evident. 

Lord, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for holding Brian as he falls more in love with You and Your Word. 

Thank you that you are teaching him and our whole family daily what it means to serve you…to seek justice…to love mercy… and to walk humbly with You. As I sit here my heart is ready to burst with gratitude for the way you have carried Brian and our entire family in the Shadow of Your Wing. 

In Jesus’ precious name,

Amen